Frequently Asked Questions

What is BCAP?

The United States Department of Agriculture's Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP)
encourages the use of low-value organic material, mostly forest debris, to create energy at
biomass facilities. BCAP provides matching payments (called "CHST payments") specifically for
the collection, harvest, storage and transportation of these materials. Since the inception of
USDA's CHST payment program, thousands of tons of low value products have been removed
from the woods and fields of America. This program directly benefits the Nation's healthy forest
initiatives and contributes to a more sustainable, energy independent future.

What role does BCAP play for the biomass industry?

Biomass energy technologies can be differentiated from other renewables in that biomass plants
must pay for their fuel. While the fuel itself has little value per se, there is a cost for the
collection and transportation of the fuel to our facilities. Unfortunately, the cost of the
industry's fuel input has risen dramatically due to a combination of factors—escalating diesel
costs, the collapse in some markets of the forest products industry (resulting in our members
having to seek fuel from longer distances) and the contraction in available fiber from a shrinking
pulp and paper industry. BCAP has allowed existing facilities to source fuel from more distant
markets, and in many cases, has been the "lifeline" that has allowed facilities to remain open.

Why not just zero out the program and take it up again during the 2012 Farm Bill?

The current situation in our industry is dire.

In Maine, a state which hosts the second largest number of biomass facilities, half the fleet (5
facilities) is idle, with 3 closed permanently in the last 12 months alone. This has resulted in
hundreds of families without jobs, in areas of the State with little or no other economic
opportunity. In communities where these facilities are located, the biomass plant is often the
largest taxpayer. The plants enjoy deep local support. For example, when the Ashland, Maine,
plant announced its closure in February, hundreds of residents signed petitions in an effort to
keep it open.

In California, the state where the highest number of most biomass facilities are located, the
situation is equally alarming. Two plants recently closed, and on top of the many that are idled.
Only 33 out of 40 of the existing facilities are operating (or have the potential to operate)
currently. Of that total, another 20% are temporarily idled, subject to curtailment or on the edge
of permanent closure.

Doesn't the biomass industry already receive federal support through the tax
code?

Biomass is one of the least supported forms of energy (renewable or fossil) to receive federal tax
benefits. Congress failed to extend the industry's tax credits after they expired in 2009. While
biomass qualifies for Section 1603 Treasury Grants, less than 2% of the projects approved by the
Treasury since the program began in 2009 have gone to biomass.

Because without BCAP, USDA is left to manage the removal of biomass from its forests the way
it has always done—expensively and inefficiently—largely without the benefits of producing
energy, and at a cost that makes no sense. BCAP leverages the private sector by partnering with
biomass fuel companies and producers of energy, spending funds that would have already been
spent on forest debris removal, but simply paying biomass plant operators to do the job, instead
of the USDA collecting this debris itself.

Without BCAP, much of the waste wood that currently plagues federal forestland in California
will never be collected and used for renewable energy under current economic conditions.
Instead, it will serve as kindling to the hundreds of forest fires experienced in California each
year. The same is true in Michigan, where the Forest Service undertakes controlled burns of the
Huron Manistee National Forest to prevent forest fire. This activity is a significant cost to the
taxpayer, creates unnecessary additional greenhouse gas emission, and without any renewable
energy value.

Doesn't BCAP distort markets and divert material from higher value use by other
industries?

As originally implemented, that was the result, which is why BPA teamed up with affected
industries and supported USDA's rewriting of the rule to make sure only "low value" organic
material that had no other market value use would qualify, and that the program was not just
paying producers for "business as usual" activities.

USDA's Biomass Crop Assistance Program Webinar

history, applications, and how to take advantage

The Biomass Power Association is the nation's leading organization working to increase the use of clean, renewable biomass power and create new jobs and opportunities in the biomass industry.